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Saturday, August 30, 2014

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's
heart."

Albert Camus

On Labor Day, September 1, Executive Media will mark
nineteen years of helping senior executives increase the impact of their
communication with their constituencies.

For almost two decades, blue-chip organizations – like
Avaya, Cisco, Fujitsu, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Humana, IBM,
Motorola, Siemens, Symantec, US Airways -- have relied on us for speeches,
video programs and large-scale multimedia events for audiences as large as
10,000.

In addition, for the past four years, I’ve indulged in the
popular fantasy of operating a bed-and-breakfast and have two -- on Cape Cod
and Vieques, Puerto Rico.

In the meantime I’ve been busy writing for myself for a
change, and right now I have three books being vetted by professional editors:

Down the Edges, a
novel that reveals what happens when evil comes alive in a sleepy Cape Cod town

Silently in the Dark,
a novella that traces a homeless boy’s grim engagement with innocence and
iniquity

A Light from Within,
essays centered on the odd and the ordinary

Works in progress are The Fat Guy in the Fat Boat, Clean
Jokes, and a novel with the working title of Ex-.

It was a book called Do
What You Love and the Money Will Follow that spurred me to leave a secure
job in corporate management and start my own company in 1995. I soon discovered that
work is not about the money, but the love. This was substantiated by a 2010
Princeton University study of 450,000 Americans, which found that when annual
income is sufficient to meet basic needs, increased income doesn’t make people
any happier.

In my two paradise spots of Vieques and Cape Cod – where
everybody seems to be either vacationing or retired –-- all are taking their
rest.

But I know a good number of people who are productive well
into what are considered retirement years. Architect John Hix, for example, is
designing and building houses into his mid-seventies. Trappist monk Gabriel
Berton is providing spiritual counsel as he approaches 80 years of age. And Impressionist
painter Ilona Royce Smithkin is painting, teaching, modeling and performing
cabaret into her mid-nineties.

Work is more than a way to make a living. It is our participation
in the ongoing creation of the universe. We are heirs to the work of past generations
and at the same time we share in building the future for those who will come
after.

Catholic social thought suggests that work is a good thing –
for the individual and for humanity -- because through work we not only
transform nature and adapt it to our needs, but we also achieve fulfillment as
humans, in a sense becoming "more a human being.”

This view is at odds with the way I observed corporate
culture evolve its perception of employees during my own career -- from
“personnel” to “human resources” to “human capital.“ In other words, employees
were viewed as owned entities, like buildings and desks and telephones.

The result, many times, is an employee population that
identifies with Sisyphus, the mythical Greek who so infuriated the gods that
they condemned him to an eternity of endlessly pushing a rock to the top of a
mountain, only to have it roll back down.

Nobel laureate Albert Camus, however, found joy in this. He
wrote: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's
heart."

As philosopher Rick Garlikov explained it, the task is not to
keep the rock at the pinnacle, but merely to get it there. So every time
Sisyphus repeated the task he achieved success.

Making the attempt, in
other words, is never futile, because it determines and simultaneously rewards
our character.

It depends on who owns you and who owns your work, I guess.
If you make what you do your own, why wouldn’t you want to work until you die?In my next blog, “Adam's Curse”

Friday, August 22, 2014

As a guy who avidly watched the
“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” cable TV series several years back, I’ve
always needed help distinguishing between looking fashionable and looking
foolish.

So I turned to my friend, John
Girouard, a style guru based in Toronto and an annual visitor to Vieques. With
his partner, Bruce, John publishes the exceptional Bobo Feed website – architecture and design, fashion and styling,
food and drink, travel and urban living -- at http://bobofeed.blogspot.ca“You could dress in Dior, Lanvin or
Armani and look foolish,” John says. “Yet you could put on a simple white shirt
and a great pair of jeans and be stunning.”

Sharon
Stone's white Oscars shirt.

“You need to keep in mind that what
may appear foolish on the runways of the fashion capitals in any given season
is often directional. You might see something totally outrageous that you’d
swear no one would wear. What happens is that by the time the garment arrives
on the street you will still see some of the ‘direction’ -- but toned down by
the buyers to fit their customers,” he continues.

“What shocks us now becomes standard
fare in a few years. This has happened with exaggerated shoulders, platform
shoes, skinny jeans -- and will continue.”

Nor is being fashionable an economic
issue. “One could dress in couture and look foolish, yet the man or woman on
the street who is proud and confident can look fabulous in thrift shop finds.”

And
let’s kiss off the idea that fashion is the realm of the young. Proof point?
Some of these getups at this year’s Teen Choice Awards.

The
Misses Steinfeld, Moretz, Sparks and Stevens.

Here’s what E Magazine
had to say: “Chloe Moretz and Jordin Sparks' printed outfits were a little too busy for our
tastes. And then there was the mismatched gold-on-gold look from Katie Stevens.
Hailee Steinfeld's
slightly frumpy dress made us wish she'd went [sic] with something a bit more youthful.”

Says John: “Fashion isn't so much
about youth and clothes as it is about style and attitude and self-assurance.”

He’s right. Is there anybody more elegant than an African-American lady of
a certain age off to Sunday morning services in a queenly hat?

Here’s one such church lady quoted in TheWashington Post:

“You have a certain air
when you put on a hat. If you put on the whole shebang and you’re satisfied,
you walk different. You act different. And people treat you different.”

Dressed to visit with the Lord.

And this assurance from John: “One can never
look foolish if one has the stature and confidence of wearing any garment … and most of all, the
self assurance and confidence that come with, dare we say it, age!”

No one embodies this thought more than
Illona Royce Smithkin. At 94, she is a renowned Impressionist painter and
teacher, a fashion model and a cabaret singer.

Illona Royce Smithkin.

I give the last words to Ilona:

“When you
feel comfortable in your clothes, you look good. When your shoes fit right and
your dress isn’t too tight, you can forget about your looks and show off
yourself. There’s so much concentration on exterior beauty, you can wind up
saying, ‘I can’t go to this party, I have nothing to wear.’ Who the hell cares?
If you’re bringing yourself and you’re a nice person, you’re the life of the
party.”

Saturday, August 16, 2014

What
does this dandy-looking dude have to do with the buttoned-up world of blue-chip
corporations?

Plenty,
and that’s just an estimate.

He’s Kenrick
"ICE" McDonald, and last month he became the first black president of
the Society of American Magicians.

He’s
been practicing magic for more than 30 years. ICE, he says, stands for
Illusions, Captivation, Enchantment.

McDonald
spends half the year touring. Sometimes he's performing magic. At other times,
he's speaking at corporate events, teaching executives how to hold the attention
of an audience.

Teaching
executives?

Applying
magic to invigorate a corporate meeting isn’t that new an idea.

Forty
years ago, IBM was creating the playbook on how to produce recognition events
that would keep its marketers selling their socks off so their quota performance
would qualify them to attend the next year’s event.

We hired
David Copperfield -- when he was starting out in the business -- as an
introduction to speakers. For example, doing an illusion that, say, involved putting
a woman into a box -- and having the next speaker come out of it.

I got
David’s autograph for my seven-year-old daughter and told her to hang on to it
because, I said, this young guy is going to be big someday. She didn’t. He did.

In the
years since then, I’ve integrated magic acts frequently. Mac King, for example,
a long-running Las Vegas act, worked magic as a way to introduce winners at a
corporate awards banquet. And David Williamson was on-camera narrator for a new
product introduction, making cats, rabbits – and new Siemens phones – appear
out of thin air.

But it
was Bill Herz – a marvelous magician in his own right – who first taught corporate
speakers how to integrate illusions into their speeches as a way to deliver key
business messages. Working with Bill, I wrote talks for a number of executives
in which they “did magic.”

In a
way, it’s a lamentable commentary that corporate chieftains – as highly
compensated as most are – have to turn to card tricks in order to keep the
attention of their audience (very often the audience is their own employees).

Public
speaking is a skill – a craft -- speechwriters will tell you. It can
be learned.

If an
executive rolling up his or her sleeves and doing a trick or two makes for a
better speech, good for them. The “magic” becomes the equivalent of a Power
Point slide.

For the
professionals, though – the Copperfields and Herz’s, the Kings and Williamsons
-- magic is a state of mind, their self-expression.

And when
magic is your state of mind, the unbelievable can truly happen.

No one
epitomizes this thought more than Henry Brown. He toiled as a slave in Virginia
for more than three decades. When his pregnant wife and three children were
sold to a distant plantation, Henry had enough.He
mailed himself in a box to
Philadelphia – out of slavery and into a career of performing magic on tour,
under his new, freeman’s name of Henry “Box” Brown.

Henry “Box” Brown, from the 90th Parallel production.

You and
I are accustomed to being the magician’s audience. But in this age of
interactive everything -- from voting for the next “American Idol” to voting for
the next “Food Network Star" -- maybe it’s time we become the magic.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Jo Anne sat
at a table beneath this iconic poster of the late visionary iconoclast, Steve Jobs, for nearly an hour last week, arguing with a series of Apple customer service reps over warranty coverage of a failed
$20 iPhone power cable. Five people: the gal at the Apple franchise dealer and her closeted manager, then
two agents at the Apple call center and, finally, their supervisor.

Writer
Gerald F. Lieberman said it best:

“If the first person who answers
the phone cannot answer your question, it’s a bureaucracy. If the first person
can answer the question, it’s a miracle.”

At
issue was whether the power cable on my wife’s five-month-old, $649.99 iPhone
was simply frayed … or was its wiring exposed.

When my wife handed the failed cable to the gal at the store’s customer care counter, Jo Anne anticipated a simple exchange. The cable had failed, it was under warranty,
please exchange it for a new one.

And so
it began.

The gal took the cable into a back room through a door marked Employees Only and returned a minute later to explain what her
manager had ruled. The wiring was showing, so the warranty was invalid. If the
cable had been only frayed, the warranty would apply. If the store exchanged the
cable, Apple would not reimburse them -- because
the store hadn’t honored Apple’s warranty requirements concerning power cables.Jo Anne's position was based on cause and effect – the way everything else in the universe works: the cable had frayed, therefore the wiring was exposed.

Who knew the iPhone’s $20 power cable was so dear to Apple?

If my
wife talked to Apple directly and won an exception, the exchange could happen,
the gal said, whose name we had by now learned was Casey and who had come over to our side because she felt sorry for Jo Anne.

Right there and then, Jo Anne got on her iPhone and called Apple.

The
first agent talked to her for a while and passed her to another.

The second
agent talked to her for a while and then asked to speak to Casey.

Casey talked
for a while and then carried the phone to her manager – still taking cover in
the back room – for further consultation.

Then
the phone was handed back to my wife. The second agent talked to her for a
while and then transferred her to his supervisor, Carlos.

Carlos relented.
He would deliver a new cable to my wife -- via
Fedex Priority Overnight. She, in turn, would send the failed cable back to Apple for
examination -- via Fedex Priority Overnight.

She had
to provide a credit card number, however, and a hold was put on the card for $20.

The
next morning the new cable arrived at our home and the failed cable was returned. So far, the
$20 hold has not been charged.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Military projectile found on Cape Cod beach

A military projectile possibly
dating to the World War II era has been destroyed after it was found on a
Wellfleet beach.

A fisherman found the device in
the sand at Marconi Beach Wednesday and alerted authorities.

The State Police bomb squad
responded, and the device was blown up on the beach at about 7 p.m.

Officials kept curious
spectators about 1,000 feet away from the explosion to protect them from
shrapnel.

Sergeant Jerry Galizio of the
bomb squad told the Cape
Cod Times that the color of the smoke
indicated that the projectile was live when it was detonated.

According to Galizio, the
military used area beaches as practice ranges during World War II, and it is
not uncommon for ordnance to be found even to this day.

Associated Press, July 25, 2014

Excuse
me?

Cape
Cod was once a military practice range?

Wellfleet
is the town next to my own – Truro – and is famous for its world-class oysters.

I’ve
lived here almost 20 years and never knew that while oyster beds were
thriving on the Cape Cod Bay side of town, over on the Atlantic Ocean side
there were live bombs asleep beneath the sand.

Oh, by
the way … where does my other “paradise” house happen to be? Vieques, Puerto
Rico.

Vieques
is most famous for its role as a military practice range from World War II
until 2003. That year, the U. S. Navy pulled out after continuing civil
protests against the near non-stop shelling that eventually took the life of
one resident.

Vieques’
most popular beaches still are identified by the old Navy designations – Red,
Blue, Green. Numerous other paradisal beaches are not open to the public
because of ongoing, federally funded clean-up of unexploded ordnance.

Lonely La Chiva was #1 on Trip Advisor among Vieques attractions.

One of
my favorite snorkeling spots, gorgeous La Chiva (“Blue”) beach, was thought for
years to be bomb-free. But it’s been closed for a second look.

Then
again, I always thought Cape Cod’s beaches were bomb-free.

Marconi
Beach – where the bombshell was found last week -- gets its name from the
Italian inventor who in 1903 transmitted one of the first transatlantic
wireless transmissions from here -- between the president of the United States
and the king of England. Marconi chose the Wellfleet site because of the
barrenness of the high dunes overlooking the ocean.

The
government chose the area for similar reasons during World War II -- and established
Camp Wellfleet as an artillery training facility. The military camp outlived
its need, and in 1961 the property became part of the Cape Cod National
Seashore.

As in
Vieques, weaponry has a history on Cape Cod.

Paleoindian
projectile points have been found at numerous locations, indicating that people
have been here for at least 10,000 years.

5,000
years ago, habitation of the Cape was extensive. Artifacts dating from this
period are found throughout the Cape -- projectile points in particular.

In his
book, Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau
observed that Native American arrow heads could be found all over the place.

Last
week, as the military projectile was detonated on Marconi Beach, spectators
cheered.

But the
incident serves as a somber reminder that although World War II ended
seven decades ago, it is not fully behind us.

On
January 3, 2014, World War II took another life.

A
heavy-machinery operator was killed when his excavator hit an unexploded World
War II bomb that lay hidden beneath the soil of Euskirchen, in western Germany.
Thirteen others were injured, two critically.

The wrecked excavator and resulting crater from the explosion in Euskirchen.

There
are still thousands of tons of munitions that lie unexploded and undiscovered. Estimates
put the total load of unexploded ordnance between 95,000 and 285,000 tons. In Germany alone.

As
journalist Rebecca Rosen wrote in her
Atlantic magazine story about the explosion:

“One day there will be a final
casualty of World War II, but chances are that we are not there yet. This war
will claim the lives of those born years after it ended, its physical remnants
surviving far longer than its combatants, another reminder that the present is
forever an accretion of the past.”